Attended a nice little BBQ on Saturday and enjoyed fellowship with friends. Love the Q! (vinegar-based of course)

Spent some time in Jamestown on Saturday afternoon. Had a good time riding the Ferry and participated in a Ghost Walk tour (kinda by accident). This makes two weeks in a row that I've actually toured historical sites. Pretty soon I can guide this jink!

Many of you saw the local or national news about the shooting at Hampton University early Sunday morning. One of the victims shot in this incident was a church member at Crossroads.

The result of the event is actually a miracle of God because the 3 bullets our friend received to his body (one shattered his hand, the other entered his neck and one in his chest) actually missed all of his vital organs. He is still in the hospital receiving care but has been taken out of critical care. Praise God with us for this miracle and pray for the families of the victims during this critical time.

We are right in the middle of our Courage series at Crossroads. I have the awesome privilege of being on the preaching team so I got to speak for our weekend services. I spoke on our Purpose in this journey and it was a lot of fun! There was so much energy in the room and our youth ministry band also led the worship on Sunday and did an amazing job.

More on this series: We're on a journey together, going where we've never been before. For each of us, the journey will require a great deal of trust, a good measure of hope, and a real sense of courage. In this series we will explore the importance of understanding our position, identifying our purpose, and having persistence even when the journey gets difficult.

As Catalyst West kicks off this week in Orange County, the new Catalyst Conferencesite launched today promoting the speaker line-up for Catalyst East in October. The speaker roster features some of my speaker-heroes too! I am beside myself right now. Catalyst is also giving away a Flip Video camera every 100 hours until the event! Go check out the new site and enter for your chance to win.

I had lunch with a friend of mine the other day and took a call (albeit brief) during the middle of our time together (I know, rude) and he called me out stating "I hope this doesn't happen all the time." He wasn't talking about me being rude but rather me being so consumed with work. I started to defend myself and then realized it was pointless to start.

For years I've dealt wrestled with being consumed with work, although there have been periods where I seemed to find the balance. (Please note: Let me say, this is not a rant about my current job or even my last but its more about who I am and where I am at.) I will say that I'm grateful to have a boss that frequently urges his staff to take a sabbath (as he actually reminded us this week, again). When will the work be done? Why does it take me 2 to 3 days to unplug when I'm on vacation? The questions I also wrestled with.

I never really knew how to put the struggle into words until I read Velvet Elvis by Rob Bell a few years ago. He pointedly urged the reader (that would be me) to kill the super pastor within. I write this because I know I don't struggle alone. There are more pastors and leaders who struggle with the same tendency. Here are a few exerpts from that book that I want to share with those of you this post is resonating with:

“I had this false sense of guilt and subsequent shame because I believed deep down I wasn’t working hard enough. And I believed the not-working-hard-enough lie because I didn’t function like superpastor, who isn’t real anyway.

So I had one choice - I had to kill superpastor.

I had to take him out back and end his pathetic existence.

I went to the leaders of our church and shared with them my journey as it was unfolding. I told them if they needed to release me and find a superpastor, I understood. If we don’t know who we are or where we are trying to go, we put the people around us in an uncomfortable position. They are doing the best they can with what they have - but sometimes we haven’t given them very much have we?…”

I meet so many people who have superwhatever rattling around in their head. They have this person they are convinced they are supposed to be, and their superwhatever is killing them. They have this image they picked up over the years of how they are supposed to look and act and work and play and talk and it’s like a voice that never stops shouting in their ear.

And the only way not to be killed by it is to shoot first.

Yes, that is what I meant to write.

You have to kill your superwhatever.

And you have to do it right now.”

and here is a great truth that we all need to hear...

“…[sometimes] the talk seems so shallow. Like nobody is talking about what really matters. I think this is a direct effect of the state of the souls of many pastors and church leaders. So many leaders in Christian communities are going so fast and producing so much and accomplishing so much that they become a shell of a person. There is no space to deal honestly with what is going on deeply inside them…”

So what next? Well, here are a few action steps I've written for myself:

Kill the Super Pastor off

Hold your sabbath sacred

Get some accountability(like my good friend who called me out)

Read Mad Church Disease (even though its on my wish-list I've heard it is exactly for the super-pastor types).

Yesterday I Googled My Name. I've done this before at the recommendation ofTim Sanders, when he suggested I do this to find out who is talking about me (and subsequently, encouraged me to send them a note to thank them if its positive talk). So I googled my name and the name "Terrence Crawford" came up (which I've never been called before) with over 1,240,000 hits. "TC" as he is commonly called (hmm... I am too, but I'm the original recipe) played basketball for Oklahoma State and appears to have had a very decent collegiate career.

You can learn some interesting things by just typing your name in a good ole search engine. What do you find when you google your name?

The church was packed on Sunday for our Easter services. We had to add 12 rows of additional chairs (last I counted). Very encouraging to see so many people. Maybe they will decide to attend next week too.

A friend of mine told his congregation (on Easter) last year "you know we are open every Sunday." I thought that was funny.

I said "Happy Easters" from the stage on Sunday. I couldn't resist. People were laughing out loud on that one.

We had great services - with lots of creative elements.

Loved hearing the testimony of one of the ladies in our church whose husband was killed in Iraq. Her story is a message of Hope (in spite of great tragedy) and she told what Christ means to her. Very moving to close our Hope series.

I was invited to a couple of egg hunts but didn't get to attend any. Maybe next year.

My pastor and I had a great idea that we should hijack the helicopter doing one of the egg drops in the area and get them to drop some eggs on our campus. Sound like a plan?

An old lady rear-ended me earlier this afternoon. I was on the way to my pastor's home and was stopped at a traffic light. BAM! She hit me. No damage to my car or my body - thankfully.

I twittered the experience when it happened. Thanks for everyone who replied back to see if I was okay. Again, I'm very thankful nothing serious happened.

Was able to get a ticket to see Jennifer Hudson in concert on Sunday evening.

Enjoyed seeing her in concert. She covered a few songs - including one by Whitney Houston and another by Aretha Franklin. Girl can sing - just sayin.

She also supposed to perform on American Idol this Wednesday. By the way, I'm expecting Anoop Desai to go home this week.

My clock is saying its 3.00AM. I am a night owl but that is definitely wrong.

My alma mater contacted me about a new website they are launching. They are planning to list alumni bloggers - including yours truly. I can't wait to see who else is blogging out there.

Had a late dinner tonight. I'm stuffed!

Congrats to my friend, Laura Story, who has been nominated for 4 GMA Dove Awards - including Female Vocalist of the Year! Laura, I hope you win... You've got my vote.

Reading an advanced copy of Jud Wilhite's new book "Eyes Wide Open." Can't wait to blog about it.

Had on a polo shirt (with collar of course) on Sunday. Chuck thanked me for dressing up for Easter. Ha.

A friend of mine in college use to wear a shirt and tie to class a couple of days a week. It was very odd to me seeing how most of the students wore t-shirts and jeans or even pajamas to class. One day I actually stopped him and asked why he did this. He replied "I'm in the zone." I said "what the heck does that mean?" He continued to explain that when he dressed up for class he recognized that he paid closer attention to the professor and his performance was much better. Sometimes taking a few practical steps like this can help you focus, get you centered and you take your performance to a whole notha level. So what puts you in the zone?

I ran across an anti-bullying site the other day where you can create your own animation posters. I immediately thought of how I could use them for my own purposes. :-) I created the generic picture, plugged it into Keynote, and created my own speech bubble. Animated posters in just minutes.

Our creative team is also working hard on an alternative worship experience for Saturday evening too. It is going to be incredible. If you want to check it out and are near our area, email me for more info.

Had a great student service on Sunday evening too. Our youth ministry band broke out in "Too Late to Apologize" at one point - we had fun.

Just got an advanced copy of Jud Wilhite's new book "Eyes Wide Open." Can't wait to blog about it.

Went to a wedding on Saturday in the middle of my big move. It was a very nice ceremony.

One of my favorite highlights was the bride's mother (and our office manager) & her closest friends doing a song from Mama-Mia. It was pretty hilarious.

Praying for my friend who interviewed with a church last week. Haven't heard an update.

I keep getting emails from people on the job-hunt. Considering starting a job board at some point. I'm happy to help hunt these workers find positions...

Been selling a few things on Craigslist and eBay lately. I could get into this.

Haven't joined the Y yet.

Had a great time at Leadership Community tonight. Pastor Chuck spoke on 6 Leadership Principles he got from Rick Warren. Very good stuff.

Chuck told the church about a cool email he got from one of our first-time guests last week. The email said "your church doesn't seem religious at all and exalts Jesus at the same time." They found it refreshing and returned this past Sunday. I loved it.

American Idol - starting to disappoint me. All I'm saying is the blind boy from Alabama needs to go. I believe he has talent but not top-ten worthy.

I am doing two breakout sessions at the Summer Youth Ministry Conference at the Virginia Baptist Resource Center in Richmond, VA on May 18-19, 2009. I will be doing a seminar titled Pop Goes the Culture as well as a new one about Leveraging Technology in Youth Ministry, although the titles have been changed a bit to fit the theme. Registration is still open. Cost is $65.00 and includes all sessions, lunch on Tuesday, a conference notebook, and complete outlines of ALL workshops offered.

By the way, I loved the bio the coordinators put together, especially since they said I have the "gift of twittering and blogging." Thats funny. I wrote that down in my journal and will laugh about it again later.

Steven Furtick, lead pastor of Elevation Church, LOVES my blog. At least, that is what he twittered. Guess its April Fool's on me. When I first got this tweet from him [on March 27, 2009] I was skeptical if it was the real Steven Furtick twittering. This is one twitter account but here is yet another under his name also. Yea, its not so much him [the real Steven Furtick] that sent me the tweet. I did some further checking (into his earlier tweets) and there is a confession by the poser that he is not the real Steven Furtick. Actually, he apparently wants people to guess his identity. I have no clue, but my guess would be that its one of the 20 people @sfurtick is following (and no, its not me).

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This is a personal blog. The opinions expressed here represent my own and not
those of my employer or any other entity I may be affiliated with. Additionally, my thoughts and opinions may change
from time to time. I consider this a consequence of having an open mind. This blog is intended to provide a channel
for me to communicate and opinions represented may offer a snapshot of the various memes running around my brain,
and as such any thoughts and opinions expressed within out-of-date posts may not the same, nor even similar, to
those I may hold today.The best youth ministry content on the web can be found here. We offer the best youth ministry tips, resources, how-tos, videos and more. You can also find small group curriculum too. Terrace Crawford is a nationally recognized, affordable, Christian youth speaker. He is a much-sought-after speaker to teenagers and offers mentoring to youth and to youth workers around the world. You can also find free resources for your youth pastor networks on this site.